Thursday, February 11, 2016

I am here today, as a faith leader in our community, to state that our God is a loving and caring God – who feels our pain
and whose teachings cause us to believe that a woman has the right to make her
own choices about her body.

We are all here today because
we have struggled, prayed and debated with one another, with ourselves and our
souls and come to the conclusion that we believe that this proposed legislation
that effectively outlaws safe and legal abortion would do more harm than good
and that access to safe and legal birth control and abortion services are a
reflection of a just and moral society.

Despite rhetoric which labels
anyone who supports Choice as anti-God, anti religion and anti humanity, we know that our support of a woman’s right
to choose is based on our faith in God and the ability of human beings, created
in the image of God, to make important decisions about health, safety and
wholeness.

Despite the attempts of those
who disagree with us to paint us as evil, we are not “pro-abortion.”

The decision to terminate a
pregnancy is very difficult and painful.
It should never be taken lightly.
And yet, we also feel, passionately that such a decision should be made
by individual women – in consultation with family (whenever possible), or with
clergy, or counselors and, ultimately with God.
We do not believe that Government, Church, synagogue or mosque should be
placed in the position of legislating or interfering in the most intimate
aspects of our lives.

There are those who have
struggled with the issue of abortion and, after deliberate and careful analysis
– after much prayer and reflection – have come to the conclusion that they
cannot support a woman’s right to choose.
While I, personally, do not agree with their conclusions, I respect
their deliberation and I feel that the process of dialogue and discussion is
vitally important. We can agree to
disagree- honoring the process that has brought us to our own particular
conclusions. But for too many – the
fact that we disagree on an important issue means that the other must be
demonized and marginalized. This, my
friends, is unforgivable.

We are here today because we
are disgusted by the hypocrisy that we witness on a daily basis that justifies
the creation of laws that, on the one hand, prohibit a woman from terminating
an unwanted pregnancy, and on the other hand, make it difficult for that same
woman to receive proper healthcare, nutrition or childcare once that unwanted
pregnancy comes to term.

Throughout history,
demagogues have always looked for easy targets– creating demons that represent
the evils of society. Recently, we have
seen how women - especially poor women
- have once again become a favored target.
We have seen how Fundamentalist, conservative legislators have tried to
undo decades of progress in women’s health and bring us back to a much darker
time.

This legislation will only
serve to increase the divisions within our society. Our task today is to find ways to build
bridges – not demonize honest citizens faced with difficult choices that should
not be legislated by our government.